This Was the Most Popular Beauty Ingredient in 2018

In case you've been living on a remote island with no WIFI access for most of 2018, CBD is having a moment. From gummies, tinctures, and bath salts, chances are you probably have one friend who won't shut up about how they're turning to CBD-infused wellness products to mellow out typical millennial anxiety. 

CBD has also made its way into beauty products. In fact, you can consider it the most popular beauty ingredient of 2018. In the past year, dozens of lotions, serums, and balms have popped up, promising to calm your super red, irritated skin, or smooth out your wrinkles. You can even find the ingredient alongside the best-selling mascaras at Sephora. Milk Makeup — the only brand to formulate cosmetics products CBD (so far) — launched Kush, a vegan volumizing and lengthening mascara this year. Later, Milk followed up with CBD-infused brow gel, lip balm, and gloss. 

It's an effective beauty product ingredient because it's both an antioxidant and an anti-inflammatory.

"A study in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology found that the body's endocannabinoid system is critical to the skin's basal cells," Jeanette Jacknin, a board-certified dermatologist specializing in topical cannabinoids in skincare, says. "If you can manipulate the endocannabinoid system, you can extend the life cycle of the basal cells for more radiant, youthful skin."

In case you were wondering (which we know you were), CBD-infused beauty products will not get you high because the tend to be derived from the cannabis sativa plant, hemp, which has significantly less THC in it.  

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So why is this ingredient popping up all over the place now? Perhaps it's the current political landscape that's made the beauty industry catch on to the benefits of CBD. This year, Canada became the second country to legalize recreational weed, and it's currently legal for recreational and medicinal use in 10 states and Washington, D.C., and for medicinal use only in 32 states. Before this shift in attitude towards CBD, it was hard to separate it from its psychoactive sister, THC, and the stereotypes it was often associated with, instead of recognizing its health benefits. 

And although CBD is one of 2018's biggest beauty trends, the use of the cannabinoid compound in skincare, makeup, and wellness products is only going to grow — literally. The Farm Bill was passed this week, meaning that congress voted to make it legal to grow hemp anywhere. 

Even though there's no shortage of CBD-infused beauty products out there, with a ton of them in super sleek packaging, don't judge them based on their chic labels.

"The ones that say how many milligrams of CBD are in the product are the best," says Dr. Jacknin. "Another thing to look at is the back of the ingredient dek. It's listed from top to bottom in the order of the percentage of ingredients in the product. If you see hemp or cannabis sativa near the top or middle, it has quite a large amount. If you see it near the end of the ingredients, then the brand just put it in there for marketing purposes." 

Another way to look past the label is to read the description of the product, and why CBD was attended to the formula in the first place. Milk Makeup co-founder Zanna Roberts Rossi says that the brand always intended to come out with products that have CBD in them because of it's a part of the brand's culture, but when Milk went vegan, it also served as a replacement for beeswax in its formulas.

"CBD is great when it has a function in a product," she told InStyle during a meeting about Milk's upcoming product launches. "In the Kush Mascara, it helps the fibers latch onto the lashes, plus is vegan and eliminates animal products. You're just starting to see what the oil can do." 

To help you weed through all of the options, keep scrolling for some of the standout CBD-infused products that everyone can't stop talking about. 

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